320 COSMOS. 



In the island of Lipari, which abounds in pumice-stone, a 

 lava stream of pumice-stone and obsidian runs down to the 



of this nearly perpendicular uppermost circumvallation has already at- 

 tracted the particular attention of two distinguished geologists Darwin 

 (Volcanic Islands, 1844, p. 83), and Dana (Geology of the U. S. Explor- 

 ing Expedition, 1849, p. 356). The volcanoes of the Galapagos Islands, 

 Diana's Peak in St. Helena, Teneriffe, and Cotopaxi, present analo- 

 gous formations. The highest point which I determined by angles of 

 altitude in the trigonometrical measurement of Cotopaxi, was situated 

 in a black convexity. It is, pei'haps, the inner wall of the higher and 

 more distant margin of the crUter ; or is the freedom from snow of the 

 protruding rock caused at once by steepness and the heat of the crater? 

 In the autumn of the year 1800 the whole upper part of the ash-cone 

 was seen to be luminous, although no eruption, or even emission of 

 visible vapors, followed. On the other hand, in the violent eruption 

 of Cotopaxi, on the 4th of January, 1803, when during my residence 

 on the Pacific coast the thundering noise of the volcano shook the 

 windows in the harbor of Guayaquil (at a distance of 148 geographical 

 miles), the ash-cone had entirely lost its snow, and presented a most 

 threatening appearance. Was such a heating ever observed before ? 

 Even very recently, as we learn from that admirable and courageous 

 female traveler, Ida Pfeiffer (Meine zweite Weltreise, bd. iii., s. 170), 

 the Cotopaxi had, in the beginning of April, 1854, a violent eruption 

 of thick columns of smoke, " through which the fire wound itself like 

 flashing flames." May this luminous phenomenon have been a conse- 

 quence of the volcanic lightning excited by vaporization ? The erup- 

 tions have been frequent since 1851. 



The great regularity of the snow-covered truncated cone itself ren- 

 ders it the more remarkable that to the southwest of the summit there 

 is a small, grotesquely-notched, rocky mass with three or four points at 

 the lower limit of the region of perpetual snow, where the conical 

 form commences. The snow remains upon it only in small patches, 

 probably on account of its steepness. A glance at my representation 

 (Atlas Pittoresque du Voyage, pi. 10) shows its relation to the ash-cone 

 most distinctly. I approached nearest to this blackish-gray, probably 

 basaltic rocky mass, in the Quebrada and Reventazon de Minas. Al- 

 though this widely visible hill, of very strange appearance, has been 

 generally known for centuries in the whole province as the Cabeza del 

 Inga, two very different hypotheses, nevertheless, prevail with regard 

 to its origin among the colored aborigines (Indios) : according to the 

 one, it is merely asserted that the rock is the fallen summit of the vol- 

 cano, which formerly ended in a point, without any statement of the 

 date at which the occurrence took place ; according to the second hy- 

 pothesis, this is placed in the year (1533) in which the Inca Atahuallpa 

 was strangled in Caxamarca, and thus connected with the terrible fiery 

 eruption of Cotopaxi, described by Herrera, which took place in the 

 same year, and also with the obscure prophecy of Atahuallpa' s father, 

 HuaynaCapac, regarding the approaching fall of the Peruvian empire. 

 Is that which is common to both hypotheses namely, the opinion that 

 this fragment of rock formerly constituted the apex of the cone the 

 traditional echo, or obscure remembrance of an actual occurrence? 

 The aborigines, it may be said, in their uncultivated state, would 

 probably notice facts and preserve them in remembrance, but would 



